


remus lupin: creature of grief

by gothzabini (girl412)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Depressed Remus Lupin, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I am so sorry, M/M, Sex, dead Andromeda Tonks, hmmmmmm how do i tag this, post OotP, very depressing sad sexytimes hah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:22:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl412/pseuds/gothzabini
Summary: remus will always be in love with sirius. nymphadora knows this, but she doesn't really mind.





	remus lupin: creature of grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letsdothepanic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsdothepanic/gifts).



> sorry abt all the small letters.  
> i am such a tumblr kid, RIP.  
> i think they fit the mood, yeah?

remus knows what he’s getting into when he follows nym into her bedroom. he’s been here once before, when he was grieving sirius and so was she. they’d listened to some of his old records and she’d confided in him, told him that sirius was her favourite cousin and that when she was younger, she’d wanted to be just like him when she grew up.

she reminds him of sirius a little, but she has none of sirius's grace; a fact he’s painfully reminded of when, in her rush to get them both into bed, she manages to knock him over, trip over him and bring the nightlamp crashing down on them both. 'sorry,' she says, leaving remus to think on how sirius, despite being named for the brightest star in the night sky, had never knocked him on the head with a nightlamp.

‘it’s no bother,’ he assures her. ‘i’ve seen worse.’

‘have you now,’ she asks, a gleam in her eyes. remus wonders whether mischief runs in this segment of the black family –  the outcasts; the miserable ones who’d gotten themselves burnt off the tapestry. he remembers the summer of ’79 ; him, sirius and andromeda, sitting in the garden smoking cigarettes while andromeda listened to sirius recount some prank and talk about how the logic behind it could be used as a war tactic against death eaters.

‘you’re sirius black,’ she’d said. ‘give them hell.’ 

sirius had smirked. ‘of course, andi. you know i will.’ 

so much for that, remus thinks bitterly. so much for the inferno that’d burned inside sirius black, once.

 

now, lying on the floor, his limbs tangled with andi’s daughter’s, he realises that he owes her the truth, if nothing else.

‘nym, i don’t think i can love you,’ remus admits. ‘i don’t think i can love anyone, anymore.’

he expects her to get angry. instead, she just hums, sadly, as if she’d expected it. she puts one hand on his cheek.

‘i know,’ she says. ‘only sirius, yeah?’

remus is absurdly grateful that she doesn’t morph or change her appearance, lying there pink-haired and blue eyed. 

‘yes,’ he says.

‘who said anything about love?’ she says. ‘i just want a good fuck.’ 

 

andromeda had been so happy for them – for him and sirius. she’d hugged sirius, he remembered. 

‘burnt off the tapestry for loving the wrong men,’ she’d said to sirius, who’d laughed his big barking laugh.

‘we’ll always be a team, won’t we?’ he’d said. 

remus wonders what they would think if they could see him now.

 

nymphadora has begun to unbutton his shirt, and she slides it off his shoulders easily. she lets out a low whistle (wolf whistle, hah) as she stares at his scars, trailing the tips of them with her fingers.

remus flinches.

‘does it hurt?’ she asks.

‘no,’ remus says. ‘but..... sirius.’ 

he doesn’t need to complete the sentence. he can tell that she understands.

‘alright then,’ she says, slipping her shirt off. she guides remus’s hands to her collarbones and chest, and remus lets them rest there and closes his eyes.

 

andromeda had sent a cake, remus remembers. a cake when he’d gotten a flat with sirius. she’d baked it specially for them, iced it with pink icing but made it the flavour of chocolate he preferred. sirius had made remus eat most of it, and when remus had insisted that sirius eat some too, sirius had smiled at him. he’d murmured, ‘moony, love, don’t you know that dogs can’t eat chocolate? it kills them.’ 

he’d wondered if sirius had told andi to make the cake the way she had. his favourite flavour and everything.

he wonders now, as he lies there with nymphadora’s head on his shoulder and her hands absently drumming on his stomach, if sirius could’ve forseen this. 

 

‘nym, i don’t think i can do this,’ remus says. 

she studies his face for a moment. he waits for the inevitable explosion, but nothing comes. she moves the nightlamp away, sits up, still topless. she’s beautiful but his heart’s not into it. his heart’s not into anything – it fell with sirius, when he fell through the veil.

‘i know,’ she whispers. ‘i’m sorry,  i just wanted – ‘

‘i know,’ remus says softly. ‘it’s alright.’

she shakes her head, looking impossibly sad in the dim light. 

‘i really am sorry, remus,’ she says. 

‘please don’t be,’ he says.

 

maybe he’d resented it at first. wanted to snarl “leave me alone with my grief” when nym did things for him; made him tea, played him music, tried to distract him with mundane news. but the truth was the truth – she’d drawn him out of his shell of sorrow, at least a little bit. remus wondered if it was the power of genetics – if black blood, which sirius had feared and hated all his life, came with this sort of determined intensity, this wild inability to take no for an answer. she’d made him want to live again, but she couldn’t make him want to love. nothing could do that again. 

 

‘grief is a terrible weight to carry,’ remus says. ‘i see the ghosts of sirius and your mother everywhere.’

‘my mother?’ nym is clearly surprised.

‘yeah, we were friends back in the day,’ remus murmurs. ‘she used to be quite the wild rebel. she and sirius were kindred spirits, i think.’

nym laughs, a soft laugh. ‘she wasn’t much like that, raising me. time does strange things to people.’ 

‘it does,’ remus agrees. he doesn’t say that he doesn’t know who he is. that he isn’t really anyone anymore. that wolfsbane took away moony and his wildness, and losing sirius took away remus and his humanity. that whatever he is is only the residue of a whole person.

maybe she sees it in his face anyway. ‘you’re barely a person without sirius,’ she murmurs. ‘surely that’s unhealthy.’ 

‘i think i’m entitled to one unhealthy thing by now,’ remus says drily, and she smiles at him –  a real smile that reaches her eyes and everything.

‘of course, remus,’ she says. 

she leans forward, gently presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

‘i would get him back for you, if i could.’

remus sighs, curls up on himself, and nym picks him up in her arms easily, as if he doesn’t weigh a thing, and places him gingerly on the bed.

‘didn’t know you could carry something without dropping it,’ he says.

‘fuck off,’ she says, and gives him a small smile. 

she’s about to leave when remus reaches out, catches her by the wrist.

‘wait,’ he says.

 

remus remembers how sirius had reacted to regulus’s death – he’d gone batshit crazy. he’d set trashcans on fire, turned into padfoot and chased cats in the street, broken glass windows and come back home with bloodied knuckles and glass in his hair. remus thinks, suddenly, in a moment of clarity, that he is entitled to his overwhelming grief. as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone, he can do what he wants with it.

 

‘if you’re certain you don’t mind that i’m not going to fall in love with you,’ remus says, and nym smiles.

‘i just want to get laid,’ she says, pulling her skirt off and sitting in front of him in just her knickers. ‘i think the old werewolf thing is sexy, don’t worry.’ 

‘that’s totally inappropriate,’ remus murmurs, smiling faintly as he places a hand on one of her breasts.

‘would you prefer a different body?’ she asks, her expression part-nonchalant, part-shy.

‘no,’ remus says. ‘i want to see _you_ , whoever that is.’

 

remus knew that nothing could beat having sex with sirius. nothing could get better than that. so he wasn’t going to try and beat it. he thought of sirius for a moment, naked and ready before him, and then closed his eyes and forced the memories away.

‘let’s do this, then,’ he said. undoing his trousers and sitting up next to her.

she reached into his pants, and he reached into hers. she pressed her mouth against his neck, gently stroking his length, and he rubbed circles around her clit experimentally. after a few minutes of this, nym drew her hand back, casually licking the pre-come off her fingers. she pulled her knickers off, spread her legs, and guided remus’s hand between her folds.

‘one finger, first,’ she instructed.

remus gave her an amused look. ‘believe it or not, i have had sex with people other than sirius.’

she snorted. ‘alright, whatever.’

 

she wasn’t saying that fifteen minutes later, when she found herself riding him. remus’s dick was many things but _small_ was not one of them, and she was certain it was the best sex she would ever have. his hands were clasping her breasts, fingers circling her nipples idly, while he murmured dazed encouragement and whispered her name. she put her hands in his hair, unconcerned by the streaks of grey she found there. she knew about werewolves. how could she not, when her favourite relative had been in love with one?

 

later, remus lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. some lyrics from a rolling stones song that he knows sirius had liked are playing in his head.

he runs a hand through nymphadora’s hair, and she smiles in her sleep, her hair somehow changing from its usual pink to a soft purple.

 

i’m sorry sirius, he thinks. i hope you can forgive me.

 

at least nothing will come out of it, he thinks, closing his eyes. nymphadora will probably be on birth control – almost everyone is, since it’s war. if she isn’t, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. he’s in no position to be anyone’s father, and he thinks she knows it. he’s not going to make her abort unless she wants to (it is her body that will be carrying the child, after all) but he doubts he can support a family.

he was able to love normally once. there was space in his heart for his parents, for james and lily, frank and alice, marlene and dorcas, little harry, little neville, peter, and of course, sirius. the years have taken that away from him. there’s nothing left. just a void where all the compassion used to be. just a boring old loneliness that shouts sirius, sirius, sirius. just the horrible awareness that the worst has happened – that he has become what he never wanted to be. that he is now a monster every day of the month, not just on full moon.

 

‘remus lupin: creature of grief,’ nym would say if she knew what was going on in his head.

he holds her closer. one warm body is better than none.

he’s a horrible man.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i . uh. don't know what this is  
> don't hate me
> 
>  
> 
> ~~or: me projecting my sadness about sirius onto remus because WHY NOT~~
> 
>  
> 
> dora my love i'm sorry you deserve better


End file.
